When Brahms completed his Fourth Symphony in the summer of 1885, he referred to it jokingly as "a few entr'actes and polkas which I happened to have lying about." For the premiere, Hans von Bülow (the pianist/conductor who coined the phrase "the Three B's"—for Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms) lent his orchestra, which Brahms conducted in Meiningen that October. The audience went wild, as they say, with repeated calls for a repetition of the third movement. The work is led here by California-born Kent Nagano, one of the most successful American conductors of this century (he has conducted the Deutsche Symphonie-Orchester Berlin, the LA Opera, the Montreal Symphony, and the Bavarian State Opera).

"Sound is excellent throughout the series…. Picture quality is top-notch: colors are rich and true, and 'ghost' artifacts are entirely absent. Another plus: the live audiences are very quiet."—American Record Guide